Jennifer Aniston isn’t afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve, and to show how her apparent vulnerabilities can actually be strengths.
She demonstrated this most powerfully in her recent essay in which she spoke about the relentless tabloid scrutiny she suffers as a result of her choices in life, mostly regarding motherhood. She wrote then:
“For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of “journalism,” the “First Amendment” and “celebrity news.”
“The sheer amount of resources being spent right now by press trying to simply uncover whether or not I am pregnant (for the bajillionth time… but who’s counting) points to the perpetuation of this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children.”
This week, Aniston is attending the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy, and at an audience Q&A yesterday, she grew visibly emotional when answering one question from a young girl about the actress’ own sense of self.
"Your experience in Giffoni is an inspiration to me. Continue learning and follow your dreams" #AnistonAtGiffoni pic.twitter.com/PKfzO8QxDS
— Giffoni (@giffonifilmfest) July 23, 2016
The young questioner asks the star “if you ever had a moment in which you get up a morning and you don’t know who you are?”
Aniston then teared up while replying, wiping her eyes as she said:
“There’s not enough fingers and toes in this entire room to count how many times that moment has happened…We’re all human beings at the end of the day, whether we’re a waitress or we’re a baker or we’re a student — whatever we are, at the end of the day, you can kind of hit walls and think ‘I can’t go any further’ or ‘This is too much, my heart can’t take it’ or ‘The pain is too great’ or ‘Am I good enough?’ or ‘Will I survive?’ And you just have to sort of, somehow, miraculously overcome. You just go, ‘I can’. Yes, you can.”
Aniston explained further that everyone suffers from self-doubt and insecurities, even wealthy, famous movie stars. She said:
“…your actors, your idols, your icons, whatever you call them, have all had that experience or that moment in their lives many, many times. There’s nothing that separates us from you, because we all started at the same place. We all came out of nowhere. Don’t punish yourself if you feel that. Go talk to people and seek help and always find something to inspire you.”
You can watch that segment on this mobile footage uploaded to YouTube here.
A young Swiss fan also asked Aniston about bullying, referencing a storyline from Friends in which Rachel discovers as an adult that she was a victim of malicious rumours spread by Ross and his friend (played by Aniston’s then-husband Brad Pitt).
Aniston replied:
“When you see a bully, when you’re in a group, you have to take that bully down. You have to support each other. People didn’t stick up to bullies, and now with the internet, it is endless. It’s a bunch of anonymous bullies that can be stalking…we used to think it was just in childhood that we’d be bullied or made fun of – I was, many of us could say we were – and it’s the worst feeling in the world.
“And now the internet is full of them, and they’re cowardly and anonymous and hide behind their computers. So it’s about not letting it to penetrate…put your computers down and have conversations.”
You can watch the rest of the Q&A below (from around the 10 minute mark).
https://youtu.be/vIENEDNS444
